Baking
by RedJeyne
Summary: 3 am was perhaps not the best time to make cupcakes, but Daario didn't really care. Daario Naharis x Hizdahr zo Loraq crackfic.


It was past 3 AM when Daario arrived home, and he was less than sober. Hizdahr had no doubt gone to bed by this time. Their condo was dark. The sensible thing to do would be to go straight to sleep.

Daario Naharis had never been known for being sensible. Turning on all the lights in the kitchen, he began to rummage through the cupboards, looking for everything he would need. He must have made more noise than he had realised, because it wasn't long before Hizdahr entered the kitchen.

"What on earth are you doing?" Hizdahr was standing at the entrance to the kitchen, rubbing his eyes.

"Baking." Daario held up the bag of flour as an explanation.

"Baking?" Hizdahr raised an eyebrow at him. "Do you even know what time it is?"

"Sure I do. It's, uh…" He looked over to the oven. "3:24. "

"How drunk are you?"

"What makes you think I'm drunk?"

"You are about to add salt to… whatever it is you are baking."

Daario froze, blinking down at the salt. "Huh… You know, I've always wondered why they have to make salt and sugar look exactly the same. Seems like they just want you to make these kinds of mistakes." He looked around the kitchen. "Where is the sugar, anyway?"

"It is three thirty in the morning, Daario, I am not helping you bake."

"Awww, come on." Daario pouted.

"No."

"Don't you like cupcakes?"

"That is not the point. You can bake cupcakes in the morning."

"But I don't want to bake them in the morning, I want to bake them now. Come on, Hizzy, it'll be fun."

"I told you not to call me that." Hizdahr crossed his arms. "Have you ever baked anything in your life?"

"Nope."

Hizdahr looked at him for a moment, and then sighed. "Fine. I will help you, if only to ensure that you do not burn this entire building down."

Daario's face broke into a wide grin, his gold tooth glinting in the kitchen light. "Wonderful! Now, where do you hide the sugar?"

Hizdahr rolled his eyes, and pulled the sugar out from the back of the pantry. "Here."

Daario opened the bag and stared in suspiciously. "This is sugar?"

"Of course, what else would it be?"

"It's not white."

"It's unrefined."

"What does that even mean?" Daario sniffed at it warily.

"It means exactly what it sounds like it means." Hizdahr moved over to the ingredients Daario had already set out. He poked the butter, and frowned. "This is too hard."

"That's what she said."

"I am being serious. You cannot bake with cold butter."

"So zap it." Daario shrugged, and went back to measuring the sugar.

Hizdahr sighed and pulled a little glass bowl down from the cupboard. "How much butter does the recipe call for?"

"What recipe?" Daario turned to Hizdahr, who greeted him with an incredulous look. "What?"

"Daario… You cannot bake without a recipe."

"Why? I cook without recipes all the time, it always turns out fine."

Hizdahr massaged the bridge of his nose. "Baking is different. You cannot just throw everything into the oven. You need more precise measurements. "

"Oh." Daario considered this for a moment. "So what should-"

"Wait here." Hizdahr turned and left the kitchen. Daario entertained himself waiting for him by trying to juggle eggs, which turned out to be harder than one would think.

Hizdahr returned a few minutes later with a sheet of paper. "I printed off a-… Daario. What did you do?"

"I dropped a couple eggs. I'll clean them up later, don't worry about it."

"…. Right." Hizdahr shook his head. "Anyway, I got a recipe. Very simple, even you should be able to manage this."

Daario snatched it out of his hands and glanced over it. "Do we have all this stuff?"

"We should. You measure out the dry ingredients, I shall try to get the butter reasonably soft."

Daario nodded, and began measuring out sugar and flour, spilling copious amounts of both on the counter, the floor, and himself. Hizdahr brought the bowl of half melted butter over, stifling a yawn. "Here you go."

"Thanks, Hizzy." Daario leaned over and kissed him on the cheek. Hizdahr wrinkled his nose and went to prepare the eggs.

"Why are you putting the eggs in water?" Daario looked over curiously.

"It's warm water."

"So… Why are you putting the eggs in warm water, then?"

Hizdahr placed the little bowl of eggs and water on the counter. "Because cold eggs don't mix in very well. They are easier to work with if you warm them up."

"Couldn't we just microwave them?"

"…. No. Are you done with the dry ingredients"

"Yes." Daario held up the bowl.

"Good. Get the hand mixer, then." Hizdahr yawned again. "I am going to make tea, do you want some?"

"Ok." Daario dumped the ingredients Hizdahr had brought to him into his bowl and began mixing. Though he tried his best to be careful, he still ended up sending some of the ingredients flying about the kitchen.

Hizdahr set Daario's tea down on the counter.

"Thank you." Daario leaned over and kissed him again, on the mouth this time.

"Stop that."

"Why?" Daario pouted at him.

"You smell like booze."

"So?"

"Finish making your cupcakes, Daario. I want to go to bed."

"Finish making the cupcakes and take you to bed. Got it." Daario grinned at Hizdahr, who just rolled his eyes. Still grinning to himself, Daario poured out the batter into the cupcake pans, and put them in the oven. "Whoa when did you preheat this?" He looked over at Hizdahr.

"When I was preparing the butter."

"You're so fast." He set the timer. "So… What can we do for twenty two minutes, hmm?" He grinned.

"Make the frosting." Hizdahr handed Daario another mixing bowl, with two bricks of… something in it.

"What the heck is that? It looks like albino butter or something."

"It's shortening." He pointed to the second half of the recipe he had printed off. Squinting at it, Daario saw it was indeed a recipe for frosting. He pulled a bag of icing sugar out from the panrty, which was apparently larger than it looked.

"Why do you just keep all this stuff in the kitchen, Hizzy?" Daario pulled at one of the tridents on his beard. "I mean… How many things really require icing sugar, besides, you know, icing."

"I had meant to bake a cake earlier this month. I never got around to it." Hizdahr shrugged.

"Huh." Daario started adding all the frosting ingredients to the new mixing bowl. The mixing of the frosting was even more disastrous than that of the cupcake batter, with icing sugar flying in every direction. Once it was all mixed, Daario looked in at it and frowned. "Do we have food colouring?"

"Yes. What colour do you want?"

"Red and blue." Daario said instantly. When Hizdahr handed him the colouring, Daario split the frosting into two parts, adding blue to one and red to the other. "Now we can have Hizzy cupcakes and Daario cupcakes."

"How wonderful." Hizdahr yawned again. "Drink your tea before it gets cold."

Daario picked up his tea and took a large gulp. Hizdahr had already finished his. He placed his empty cup in the sink. "I'm going to bed. Cover the cupcakes when they come out of the oven and leave them on the counter to cool. You can frost them in the morning."

"You're going to bed?" Daario looked over and frowned.

"It is four in the morning. Yes, I am going to bed."

"You're no fun."

"I am not trying to be." He looked around. "Clean up this mess before you come to bed. We'll get bugs in here otherwise."

Daario scowled at Hizdahr's back, then began trying to clean up the mess in the kitchen. He quickly gave up on getting it done thoroughly, and just did his best to make it look sort of clean. He removed the cupcakes from the oven when the timer went off, throwing a paper towel over top of them. He surveyed the kitchen, satisfied with his work, and went to the bedroom.

Hizdahr had gone back to sleep, to Daario's disappointment. He crawled in bed beside him, wrapped his arms around him and went to sleep.


End file.
